She claims that [Lawrence] Murphy, an abusing priest in Milwaukee, “avoided justice after an intervention by Cardinal Ratzinger, now the Pope”. In the next breath, she writes: “Murphy was moved to another parish in 1974 and spent his final two decades working with children. ” She also says Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee “twice wrote to Ratzinger requesting that Murphy be defrocked”.

But surely this juxtaposition of facts could be a bit misleading. Ratzinger could not have done anything about Murphy’s crimes in the 1970s because he didn’t know about them. Knight does not mention when Archbishop Weakland got around to writing to Ratzinger. Murphy’s crimes were first reported in 1974 and Archbishop Weakland of Milwaukee didn’t write to Ratzinger until 1996 – 20 years later, when Murphy was on the point of death and beyond harming anybody. That’s relevant, is it not? So why does Knight not mention it?

Not only has the secular press been exaggerating the role Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict, played in all of this, but Archbishop Weakland’s culpability has been systematically downplayed. Weakland is hardly free from sexual scandal: he is a homosexual who payed $450,000 of diocesan funds to stave off a lawsuit from a former graduate student with whom he had an affair. Also, as Brown points out but the Times did not, Weakland “admitted routinely shredding copies of reports about ‘problem priests’ in his diocese” and “in 1988 he said the following about sex abuse victims: ‘Not all adolescent victims are so innocent. Some can be sexually very active and aggressive and often quite streetwise. We frequently try such adolescents for crimes as adults at that age.'”

To focus on Weakland and his politics and personal proclivities would, of course, change the narrative the media has been constructing — that is, a series of scandals we are supposed to attribute to a secretive, authoritarian, hypocritical, right-wing Church would suddenly be connected to liberals within the hierarchy who may have had personal as well as ideological reasons for shielding abusers. A large part of the context of these Church scandals has been dropped because it’s too politically incorrect to be dealt with, but here it is: in the decades when most of this priestly abuse was taking place, rather few people drew a sharp distinction between homosexuality per se and homosexuals inclined to target adolescents. Studies today suggest there really is a distinction, but before that became conventional wisdom, turning a blind eye to homosexuality in the priesthood almost necessarily meant turning a blind eye toward homosexual abusers. It may be true now that a homosexual priest would not feel any obligation to cover up for an abuser of pubescent boys, but was it true in decades past, when the two orientations were frequently conflated?

The secular world, by the way, still isn’t clear on how much it wants to stigmatize homosexual abuse of minors — the much lauded “Vagina Monologues,” after all, contain a passage in which a 13-year-old who has been seduced by a lesbian says, “If it was a rape, it was a good rape.” Blurred ethics apply to dubious consensual relations between adults as well: Salon reported the accusations against Weakland under the subhead, “the eminent cleric had a love affair with a younger man — but who was the real victim?” And before anyone mounts a high horse from which to judge the Church, he ought to consider how much dudgeon he feels over secular government’s failure to take to curtail rape within the penal and juvenile justice systems — abuses that, unlike priestly pedophilia, have been known to everyone in the political and chattering classes for decades. Some critics have said the Catholic Church should be more subject to outside supervision; but the secular world has dealt with its own abuse problem in a fashion at least as feckless as that of the Church.

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17 Responses to The Pope and the Pedophiles

That was a REALLY good article. I very much agree with all of your points.

Certainly before many of us were aware of the pedophilia, many of us knew that a few hetero priests had affairs, and we also knew that the sudden induction of many homosexuals would have consequenses. MOST priests, both initially hetero and homosexual, were able to stay within their vows, that is they were “married” to the church. But so many of us parishoners looked the other way without considering all the consequences, until child abuse became widely publicized, when we knew that a priest had begun to “cheat”. We would settle for being relieved, when we suddenly discovered that he had been moved to a different parrish.

I once saw a news show about an outed homosexual priest who said “If there are gay priests, there are going to be gay bishops.” The heart of the scandal is not the five percent at most priests who were serial abusers, it’s the two-thirds of bishops who passed them around from diocese to diocese where some, not cured of their “disease”, continued to do so. That’s what troubles so many Catholics who are not experts in Canon Law – Why this supposedly “conservative” institution did not take similar strong actions of defrocking someone convicted of such crimes (or at least turning them over to the cops after such accusations were made and letting the civil courts handle the situation as to absolve the church of responsibility) while they excommunicate schismatic SSPX priests or deny communion to apostate Catholic politicians? Were “gay” bishops covering up for “gay” priests? (ala Weakland) Was it just sheer embarassment and the natural human inclination to cover up scandal? Or was conspiracy involved?

You give no evidence that Rev.Weakland is a liberal. Why do you assume he is? He also seemed more concerned about protecting the Church, when asking for the defrocking of Father Murphy, as the pending lawsuits would bring out the horrific deeds, then in seeking justice. He states that in his request to the Vatican.

Perhaps you are new to the intra-Catholic debate? Before his public disgrace, +Weakland was a longtime favorite of the National Catholic Reporter and Commonweal magazine. Both those publications are on the “liberal” side of U.S. Catholicism, though of course political terms don’t work too well when applied to religion.

@TAC,

Sex abuse and cover-ups are horrific. The NYTimes’ poor reporting is an obstacle to true understanding.

While most of the Catholic abuse took place decades back, the NY Times can help expose pederasty right now in Afghanistan.

There’s a story right up TAC’s alley: Canadian troops are reporting that our Afghan allies are raping young boys, only to meet with resistance and cover-ups from their superiors.

He talks about how anthropologists are working with the US army to get our servicemen to stop being judgmental about pederasty.

Monstrous quote:
‘Nevertheless the military voices on the show had their winning moments, sounding like old-fashioned relativists, whose basic mission in life was to counter ethnocentrism and disarm those possessed by a strident sense of group superiority. Ms. McFate stressed her success at getting American soldiers to stop making moral judgments about a local Afghan cultural practice in which older men go off with younger boys on “love Thursdays” and do some “hanky-panky.” “Stop imposing your values on others,” was the message for the American soldiers. She was way beyond “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and I found it heartwarming.’

A brief survey of the web shows that Canadian troops are reporting these attacks on Thursdays.

Shweder’s essay appears to have been his last with the NYTimes, but his light-hearted approach to sexual abuse is even worse than a self-serving church cover-up.

RE: “And before anyone mounts a high horse from which to judge the Church, he ought to consider how much dudgeon he feels over secular government’s failure to take to curtail rape within the penal and juvenile justice systems — abuses that, unlike priestly pedophilia, have been known to everyone in the political and chattering classes for decades” and your comment about the Vagina Monologues.

You’re forgetting that the church is supposed to be a moral authority and not a place for punishment or fiction.

Most troubling about the continued revelations of abuse is that given the Catholic’s Church penchant for secretcy, we don’t know if this is still occurring.

“While most of the Catholic abuse took place decades back, the NY Times can help expose pederasty right now in Afghanistan.”

oh come on…that is a logical fallacy…a red herring. two wrongs don’t make one right!

we should clean our church from top to bottom without delay and without keeping to shoot at the messengers. this tribal defense that (too!) many of us Catholics engage into if shameful and counterproductive. it alienates well meaning secular people and it demoralizes the believers.

if the pope is involved, let the pope resign. if bishops are involved, let them resign. if priests are involved let’s get rid of them. and let all of them stand the jury of man.

I don’t see why you thought I was making a “two wrongs” argument or making a tribal argument.

If the NYTimes published an essay winking at those who excuse pederasty in some cases, but gets in high dudgeon about those who excuse pederasty in others, some criticism is justified. In the case of current scandals involving the Pope, the Milwaukee reports have been inaccurate and it’s uncertain whether he even knew the priest relocated to Munich was a pedophile.

Given how the reports have been spun, well-meaning people deserve to know about both problems in the Church and problems in the media.

“Some critics have said the Catholic Church should be more subject to outside supervision; but the secular world has dealt with its own abuse problem in a fashion at least as feckless as that of the Church.”

So when teachers sexually abuse hundreds of students, they get sent to another school without the slightest punishment?

Nice job of defending the indefensible, Daniel McCarthy, George Orwell had people like you in mind when he came up with his definition of political language.

Because Secular Society doesn’t do enough to protect hardened adult male convicts, it’s okay for the Catholic Church to not do enough to protect defenseless boys.

And if you look at how much these boys are complaining about what was done to them, it’s clear we aren’t talking about something that was even remotely consensual that was done to them by these Priests the Catholic Church has gone to the mat to protect.

Statsaholic, nobody is saying the Church has “done enough” — it has plainly failed to do enough to prevent and punish abuse. In bringing up the mistreatment of juvenile detainees (not just “hardened adult male convicts,” though they can be victims too) my point is that secular authorities might not have either the will or means to do any better than the Church. And while I haven’t heard similar scandals about schools (which hardly means they don’t exist), one does hear such things about foster homes and various other youth programs administered by the state. If the Church is to do better, which it must, the hierarchy itself will have to make the necessary changes. Subsuming the Church beneath secular power and secular morality (such as it is) will not help.

Wait a minute…aren’t we missing the point in this debate? We should all expect more from the church than we do from the government. The church is to be without stain or blemish. The people of God’s holy church should be held to a higher standard because we are set apart by God. We are his saints who are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. If God is truly in us than the fruits of the spirit should be what others see in us. This should be especially true of those whom have been called by God to lead. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith and meekness are what we should see, NOT sexual abuse of children, cover-ups, scandal and secrecy.
We are called to be UNLIKE the world. How can we lead others to Christ if the things that they see and hear about us are just as bad or WORSE than what they see from the rest of the world? We are talking about the church – not just a political or government institution. Are we so desensitized by what we have seen and heard that we no longer understand the role of the church? I have to agree with Max. I’m sure that we are breaking the very heart of God with all of this church scandal and giving many unchurched people just one more BIG reason not to trust the church. This pushes people further from God. This is in direct opposition to the role of the church. Those who are guilty of abuse, or cover-ups should resign or be removed immediately to restore some sense of honesty, trust and integrity to the church. If this means the pope must step down, so be it. He too is held to a higher standard and is accountable to God for his words, thoughts and actions. The pope may even be held more accountable because of the countless millions of people that he has been given the opportunity to impact – positively or negatively.